


Hugs

by Elenhin



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenhin/pseuds/Elenhin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet one more of the challenge lines Aramirandme81 so kindly gives me from the One Word at a Time series. </p>
<p>The word was hug, the line; Anders stand alone, looking brittle and pale. Mike sighs and wishes for the days where he could solve his brothers problems with a hug.</p>
<p>And this is what I wrote. </p>
<p>Big thanks as always to Aramirandme81</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hugs

Hug

 

Anders stand alone, looking brittle and pale. Mike sighs and wishes for the days where he could solve his brothers’ problems with a hug. They never were a family for hugs, at least he and Anders never were and he thinks it is at least partially due to their parents never hugging either of them.

 

Anders though loved hugs when they were offered, but he never went and asked for them. Mike would hug him when he was sad and upset, when he had hurt himself and was crying.

 

_He swung the cricket bat as hard as he could, but his aim was off and the bat hit nothing. The ball hit him in the face and though Mike hadn’t bowled hard at all he stood there with a look of utter shock on his face._

_Mike sighed, walking over to him and wrapping his arms around him for a moment. If he wasn’t crying it wasn’t bad, but just the same he needed just a little comfort. The hug distracted him from the slight sting and he forgot all about it hurting. Picking up the bat and standing at ready again as Mike fetched the ball._

 

If he was sick he could be clingy too, following Mike around even though he should be in bed.

 

_“Anders, you idiot, do you want to be sick,” Mike half snapped as he turned around and faced his brother. Anders stood behind him wearing only his pajamas, a smiling train engine large on his chest and Mike sighed when he saw he was even barefoot. The floor was cold and Anders who always got cold was the last one who should be walking barefoot on a cold floor, especially when he was already sick._

_Now he shook his head mutely, which was wrong because normally you could not shut him up._

_“Go back to bed,” he ordered trying to sound stern. “Before mum catches you up.”_

_Anders still said nothing, but lifted one foot to rub the other and Mike figured his feet would be like ice now. Sighing he lifted him up, and instantly Anders’ small arms were tight around his neck._

_“So that’s it,” he sighed. “Wanted a hug to feel better, huh?”_

_Anders still said nothing, but Mike could feel his cheek rub against his own as he nodded his head, still safe in the embrace of his brother._

 

That was Anders for you, so easy to talk, yet so hard to ask for a hug. In spite of how he used to chatter away, it was like he didn’t know the words.

 

_Anders kicked off his shoes angrily, throwing his backpack to the floor with a thud before he stomped into the house. Going into the kitchen he sits down at the table, literally slamming his elbows onto the wood before propping his chin in his hands._

_Mike raises an eyebrow, having only had a half day at school and being home already. Normally when something has gone wrong for the blonde he’s telling Mike all about it as soon as he sees him. He usually don’t clam up like this._

_“So, anything happen today?” Mike muses as he reaches into the cupboard for the cookies. The one they’re not allowed to touch, but mum has stopped yelling at him for it because he don’t care when she does._

_Anders folds his arms on the table surface, rests his chin on his forearms and just glares at the wall at the other end of the room._

_“They picked on you again, huh?” he muses as he pours a glass of juice. Anders is the smallest in his age group, and a lot of the kids one year younger are bigger than he is as well. So he gets bullied a lot, and the fact that he can’t fight worth shit does not help. His tactic is mostly run and hide._

_He do not need to hear Anders answer, it is obvious the way he is starting to tremble a little now, shivering lightly even though it is not cold. Because he was scared as well as angry when they bullied him. He is scared and mad now too, because he is powerless to stop it, and because he is ashamed of it._

_Mike puts the cookie and the juice in front of him, and Anders raises his head but do not look happier for it. So Mike picks him up for a moment, tending to the little scared boy who is his brother at the moment, wrapping his arms around him and allowing Anders to rest against his chest._

_“Idiots and bullies gets it in the end Anders,” he tells him softly. “It can take a long time, but they do.”_

_Anders burrows himself deeper into his embrace._

 

A hug never made the hurt bullies left behind go away completely, but Anders forgot about being scared and mad until the next time they ganged up on him.

 

It was really weird, Anders was small for his age and everyone knew he couldn’t fight, but still they would gang up on him. Six kids and ten kids, a whole crowd of them, bigger and older against one so small and scared.

 

Mike was fairly big, and he could fight when he had to. He didn’t like to, but he would send them off with a bloody nose or a black eye. He didn’t let them bully him, and yet they came at him one at a time. They ganged up on Anders, but they fought fair with him. It was crazy.

 

_Mike didn’t like fighting kids who were smaller than himself, but the other kids like to pick on those who were smaller, and Anders was. That meant that his antagonists were usually bigger than Anders and smaller than Mike which made it slightly complicated. Normally he would scare them off, and bullies tended to be cowards._

_Seeing his brother with his back pressed up against a brick wall while they were tormenting him however made him too angry to care if he was bigger. One of them spat at Anders, the saliva hitting his forehead and sliding down his face as he cowered. Someone scooped up a handful of mud and smacked it at his neck so it slid in under his jacket._

_They were all nearly twice as tall as Anders was and he was trembling with fear so bad Mike wasn’t sure how he kept standing._

_It very nearly made him see red, and he did not care if he was hitting someone smaller than himself, he did not care at all._

_Anders recovered some when he heard his brother cry out, still pressed against the wall but watching. Mike grabbed the first two and threw them to the ground so he could reach the one who had kicked his brother. He was the one he wanted, and grabbing him by the collar he slammed a fist into his face._

_He felt really pleased with himself when blood poured from his nose, it served him right for picking on someone so much smaller. Seeing the rest of them running from the spot, and the guy with the bleeding nose whimpering on his knees he turned to Anders, who went white as a sheet and slid to the ground in a dead faint._

_That was when Mike regretted having hit the kid in the nose, Anders was not good with blood, and as scared as he had been he clearly could not handle it._

_It wasn’t dangerous in any way when he fainted, he would come too and be perfectly fine and it did not even worry Mike anymore. It was just his weird wimpy brother who could not stand to see blood. You just had to let him rest for a spell and you never knew he had fainted._

_He didn’t want to leave him on the ground though so he picked him up to carry him, he figured he would come too again before it was time to get on the bus. Even if he didn’t it would be okay because the driver knew about Anders and blood after a kid got his hand caught in the door and bled a little._

_When Anders woke up Mike sat on a bench for a moment. Anders wouldn’t be able to rest properly before they got home, and the bus wouldn’t be there yet, so for the moment he sat and held his brother who sighed softly._

 

Even with the bullies and the crappy way their family worked it had been much easier back then Mike mused. Because Anders was a coward and a bit of a prick from the start, but he wouldn’t let anyone hurt his younger brothers, and he really never meant to be a prick. He wasn’t mean and he wasn’t cruel, he was just selfish and confused about why what he did was the wrong thing.

 

He didn’t bully kids though, so Mike figured he wasn’t all bad. I was just so very hard to reach him that he stopped trying.

 

Sometimes the difference is so obvious, when he sees the other kids and then looks at Anders. Certain things should not happen, but they still do. A drunk man should not be able to get into a school where kids are, and he should not be able to make his way into a classroom full of teenagers. A big man, too drunk to know what he was doing, suffering from a traumatic experience someone said. Because his wife had just packed up their three kids and left one day when he came home, left him without a word and he never got over it.

 

Mike do not care, he can’t feel sorry for someone who gets drunk and takes it out on school kids. Teenagers who might be fairly big physically but are still much too young to deal with something like that emotionally.

 

The man had shouted obscenities at them, cursing them and raging. Turning over desks and throwing a couple of chairs. He had slapped a couple of the teenagers, two girls with red marks on their cheeks, surrounded by the rest of the class and the teachers.

 

Several of the teachers had quickly hurried there, calling the police and they had gotten him out of there.   
  
The girls are frantic though, sobbing in the arms of their friends and a few members of the family who got there about the same time Mike did.

 

Mike spots his brother on the outskirt of the group, a red mark on his cheek and knows he too got in the way of the drunk, but it looks like no one have realized that yet.

 

Mothers are hugging their daughters, holding them and letting them cry surrounded by those who love them.

 

Anders stand alone, looking brittle and pale. Mike sighs and wishes for the days where he could solve his brothers’ problems with a hug.

 

The End

  
Please comment, the Cricket is hungry and wants to once more recommend the One Word at a Time series by Aramirandme81


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